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I have already mentioned that the other record I wanted to look up at Worthing Library was the baptism record for Ruth HILTON. I had found a very likely entry on the International Genealogical Index (IGI) and wanted to confirm all the details and fill in the missing data.

There was something curious about the entry on the IGI, the baptism date was given as 1837, just 1837, no day or month. I felt that it was probably a transcription error, but couldn’t understand quite how such a glaring error could have slipped through.

Ruth was baptised in the parish of Duncton, Sussex which ties in with one of the census entries I have found so far. When I loaded the microfiche I soon found that the entry on the IGI was correct, only the year had been entered in the date section.

Worse still, but not for me fortunately, the next baptism had no date at all. It looks like Ruth only got the year because she was at the top of a new page. The previous entry was from the 12th March 1837 and the one after the one with no date was from the 6th August 1837.

I would not be surprised if a date was missing from one of the early general registers, but after 1813 there was a printed page to fill in with all the relevant information, so it should have been obvious at the time that something was missing.

Apart from that the baptism record was quite normal, normal that is for someone who was illigitimate. Underneath the name Ruth was the word illigit and only Ruth’s mother’s name was given, Eliza HILTON. The occupation was entered as labourer, and I am guessing this refers to the father’s occupation not Eliza’s.

So using both the baptism and the marriage record I have both parents names, but that is all I have, no clue as to how old they were, whether they were ever married or remained single or where they came from.